How to build a sales funnel: from first click to client, in four steps

What does building a sales funnel actually mean?

Building a sales funnel is mapping out the route someone travels from “never heard of you” to “client”: how they come in, how they learn to trust you, where you make your offer and how you follow up. You build that route from the bottom up, starting with what you sell.

Want to know first what a sales funnel is exactly and where the term comes from? That is in the knowledge base: what is a sales funnel. This guide is about building one.

With us, a funnel is usually just called the room. The image is the same: you want to get people in, and you want them to buy. And just like a room, a funnel can leak in two places.

Most explanations of sales funnels are about the first leak: more traffic, more leads, more downloads. We think the second leak is more expensive. A funnel full of people who buy nothing is a free course you are giving to the wrong audience.

How to build a sales funnel in 4 steps

A sales funnel for experts has four layers. They follow our Sold-Out Recipe.

Notice that the order is different from most step-by-step plans? Those start at the top, with “attract traffic”. We start at the bottom. Because whoever doesn’t know what they are selling, doesn’t know who to bring in either.

1. Dough: start with your offer

Take a blank sheet and write down in two sentences what someone can buy at the end of your funnel. Not “my services”. A concrete programme, course or assignment, with a price and a clear step to get in.

Can’t do it in two sentences? Then your funnel is not ready to be built. Every email, every ad and every slide in your webinar will soon work towards that offer. If it is vague, everything becomes vague.

Three questions you need to answer here:

1. Who is it for, and who isn’t it for? A funnel that lets everyone in doesn’t filter. You want buyers, not viewers.
2. What is the step? A strategy session, an intake, a proposal? One step, not three.
3. Why now? What does it cost to wait another six months?

A funnel is work. It pays for itself fastest with an offer that has something real behind it. We ourselves work with clients who sell a programme of €2,500 or more. Below that, a funnel with events and personal follow-up is often more work than it delivers.

2. Rise: fill the top

Only now the question: how do the right people come in? For experts, two kinds of entrance work.

• An event. A webinar, workshop, masterclass or knowledge session. In an hour you show what you know, how you think and who you are. That builds trust faster than ten posts.
• A lead magnet. A checklist, scan, calculator or quiz that delivers something in exchange for an email address. Less personal than an event, but always available. What makes a good lead magnet is in the knowledge base under lead magnet.

And then fill. Your own email list, LinkedIn (content and personal invitations), targeted outreach to people who fit your audience, and ads if you want to go faster or wider. How to do that for a webinar is in how to organise a webinar. For a physical or online workshop, read how to organise a workshop.

One thing decides more here than the channel: the title and the promise. A title that appeals to everyone fills the top with people who will never buy. A title that appeals precisely to your buyer may deliver fewer sign-ups, but the right ones.

3. Oven: warm up

A sign-up is not yet a participant. A download is not yet a reader. Between saying yes and actually coming to watch there is time, and in that time interest cools.

That is why every sales funnel has an oven: a sequence of messages that keeps people warm. A confirmation with the date in the calendar. One or two messages that already give something valuable, so people know why they are coming. And reminders just before the start, via email and WhatsApp.

How to build that sequence is in how to reduce webinar no-shows. Example texts for the reminders themselves are in the reminder email for your webinar or workshop.

4. Counter: sell and follow up

This is where your funnel pays for itself, or doesn’t. Two things have to be right.

The offer itself. In your webinar or workshop you make a clear offer, with a bridge from what you showed to what you are offering. How to build that with knowledge, inspiration and offer in the right ratio is in a webinar that sells.

The follow-up. Most funnels stop after the event. An email with the recording, a week later. Then you start all over again. Follow up within a day: call or message whoever showed interest, book the conversation, and send whoever didn’t respond a short follow-up. How that conversation goes is in the sales call after your webinar. Example emails are in the follow-up email after your webinar or workshop.

Interest is fresh. Whoever only responds after days is talking to someone who already has three other things on their mind.

What kinds of sales funnels are there?

Every funnel has the same four layers. The difference is in the entrance.

• Webinar funnel. An online event at the centre. Good for reach beyond your region and for experts who find it easy to talk to a camera.
• Workshop funnel. A smaller group, often in person, in which people get to work themselves. Works strongly for training providers and coaches: after a workshop, someone knows what it feels like to work with you.
• Masterclass funnel. More depth, often a smaller, more select group. Suits a higher-priced offer, where trust makes the difference.
• Lead magnet funnel. A download, scan or calculator, followed by an email funnel and an invitation to a conversation or event.
• Evergreen webinar funnel. A recorded webinar that can be watched at any time. Handy to keep running, but you miss the urgency and the contact of live.

They are not strictly separate. A lead magnet can send people to a webinar, and a webinar to a strategy session. The principle stays: every step must point to the same counter.

Building a webinar funnel: what it looks like

An example, made up but recognisable. A career coach sells a three-month programme to professionals who are stuck in their job. This is what her webinar funnel looks like:

1. Dough. The offer: the programme, with a half-hour intake as the step. For professionals who already know that they want out, but not where to.
2. Rise. An online masterclass on a weekday evening, with a title that names exactly that doubt. Filled via her email list, LinkedIn posts in the weeks before and personal invitations to former participants of earlier workshops.
3. Oven. Right after sign-up, a confirmation with a calendar invite. A few days later a short question: what are you most in doubt about? The day before and an hour ahead, a reminder, by email and WhatsApp.
4. Counter. In the masterclass she really shares something useful, shows what it looks like when someone does take the step, and makes one offer: book your intake this week. The next day she calls everyone who asked a question, and whoever didn’t come gets the recording with the same offer.

No complicated automation. But a funnel in which every step knows where it is pointing.

Email funnel: what goes in it?

An email funnel is the sequence of emails someone gets after a sign-up or download. It is the oven of your sales funnel, and sometimes part of the counter too.

A good email funnel for an event has roughly three kinds of emails:

• Before the event: confirmation, something valuable up front, reminders. Goal: that people come.
• Right after the event: the recording, a short summary and the same offer as in the event. Goal: that whoever was in doubt takes the step after all.
• The days after: one or two emails that take away a common doubt, with a clear deadline if your offer has one. Goal: a yes or a no.

What doesn’t belong in it: a months-long sequence of “valuable tips” without ever making an offer. That is not a funnel. That is a newsletter that is embarrassed about itself.

How do you measure whether your sales funnel works?

Count per step how many people go on to the next. For an event funnel, that is four numbers:

1. Sign-ups. Is the right group coming in?
2. Participants. How many registrants actually came?
3. Conversations. How many participants took the next step?
4. Clients and revenue. How many conversations became a yes?

Where the biggest gap is, that is your leak. Lots of sign-ups and few participants? Then it is in the oven. Lots of participants and few conversations? Then it is in your offer or your bridge to it. Lots of conversations and few clients? Then it is in the conversation itself, or in who you brought in.

Likes, reach and open rates are nice to look at. They don’t pay your rent.

The five most expensive mistakes when building a sales funnel

Want to know where your funnel is leaking right now? Take the free leak test: thirteen questions, three minutes, per step of the recipe. How we approach that as an event marketing agency, from offer to follow-up, is on that page. Want to build it together? We do that in the Sold-Out Session: in one half-day, your offer crystal clear and your event structure in the right ratio, for a one-off €3,000. Want us to run the whole recipe every month, with follow-up and a scoreboard per event? That is the House Recipe, from €3,500 per month, minimum six months, media budget not included. All prices exclude VAT.

A funnel without a bottom is not a funnel. It is a colander.

RK

Rubin Koot · Hoofdbakker

Rubin is the founder of Online Marketing Bakery in Roermond. You take the stage, we fill the room. And we make sure it buys.

[email protected] · More about the bakers

Further reading: What is a sales funnel? · How to organise a webinar: the step-by-step plan · How to organise a workshop · A webinar that sells · The sales call after your webinar · Event marketing agency · Take the free leak test · The Sold-Out Session · Marketing for coaches

How we work: first the offer, then the room. Want to get going with a brief like this? We do that in the Sold-Out Session: your offer and your event structure in one half-day.